11 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The picture editor of the Daily Mail faced a tough grilling over the paper’s policy of photographing celebrities and their families at the Leveson Inquiry.
Pressed on the the paper’s seeking a photo Hugh Grant and the mother of his child soon after the baby’s birth, Paul Silva said there was no suggestion from the press release at the time that there was a privacy issue.
“It was a major showbiz story of great interest to our readers,” Silva said, adding that the paper sought a posed photo of the new family, as it had done with David Cameron after the birth of his daughter.
When asked by Robert Jay QC whether or not he should have sought Grant’s permission beforehand, Silva defended his paper’s policy. “A story breaks, we then go to their home, we ask them to pose up, if they say no we’ll move on and go away.”
Silva agreed with a celebrity asking for privacy for their children, and that he “would go along with whatever they ask”. He said it was the paper’s policy that images of children would be pixellated, and when asked by Lord Justice Leveson whether it was questionable that photographers should be taking such pictures in the first place, he responded, “possibly, yes.”
Asked why he used unblurred pictures of the McCanns’ children, Silva responded that there was no objection at the time. “It was the most intense story I’ve ever worked on,” he said, adding that in hindsight he “possibly” should not have used the pictures.
Gerry and Kate McCann, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May 2007, gave their testimony of alleged press intrusion to the Inquiry in November, detailing how journalists had camped outside their Leicestershire home upon their return to the UK.
Silva also clarified that he only deals with pictures for the newspaper, not for its website, Mail Online. Asked about photos on the website of actress Sandra Bullock trying to shield her child from photographers, he conceded, “if that was a British celebrity taken in a British park we’d be asking a lot of questions.”
He added that the Mail’s picture desk receives 300-400 photographs daily of the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister Pippa Middleton, but there was “no justification” in using them.
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21 Dec 11 | Index Index, minipost
Strictly Come Dancing star Nancy Dell’Olio has had her libel action against the Daily Mail struck out by the high court. Dell’Olio attempted to sue the tabloid after an article, headlined “Return of the man-eater” appeared, referring to her relationship with 71-year-old theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn. The article, which was published in April, described Dell’Olio as “a woman who hunts men but, rather than kill them and eat them, uses them for her own selfish ends”, which she believed presented her as a “predator”, and a “serial gold digger“.
03 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
Crossposted at Hacked Off
What lies behind the Daily Mail’s assault on Hugh Grant? Could it be conventional piety? Hardly: have you looked at Mail Online lately? It is an artful mix of soft porn and celebrity gossip of the kind which, just a few years ago, the Mail itself would have dismissed as morally corrosive.
Is the paper living in a dream world of Downton Abbey values? Maybe, but look at this story. Delightfully illustrated and just a week old, it shows a Daily Mail that, far from being judgemental, is aware, cheeky and relaxed, even in the face of evidence of mass adultery.
Or could it be that Amanda Platell has some personal objection to Hugh Grant? She would not need one, for her article carries all the hallmarks of Glenda Slagg morality. Imagine that her instructions had been to whip up hatred against the mother in this case rather than the father. She could have done so with exactly the same passion and apparent conviction, simply substituting arentyasickofher for arentyasickofhim.
The Mail’s great broadside against Grant has nothing to do with morality and nothing to do with the perils of fatherhood outside wedlock. It is simply an act of intimidation.
The actor has been a prominent critic of privacy intrusion by the press and the Mail has chosen to make an example of him. It is saying to any prominent person who challenges the press: if you speak out, this is what we will do to you.
One of the most vivid insights into the culture of the old News of the World was a conversation from 2002 that happily was recorded for posterity. “That is what we do,” a news editor told a reporter, “we go out and destroy other people’s lives.”
The Mail plays the same game, and its technique in this case is wilful distortion. Take three facts and from those facts derive a dozen assumptions, all of which fit your agenda. From those assumptions weave a narrative as demeaning as can be contrived, and then pile the outrage on top. Never mind that the same three facts could provide the foundation of five entirely different narratives, leading to entirely different perspectives on those involved.
Platell doesn’t know the truth about Hugh Grant’s relationships and the Mail doesn’t either, but that does not matter: they have constructed a story that serves their purpose.
Just at this moment, with the Leveson inquiry set to start taking evidence and the joint parliamentary committee on privacy in full flow, the Mail is desperate to blunt the message that the unregulated mas-circulation press — the press that gave us hacking, the McCann case, the Christopher Jefferies case and so many others — is a threat to the health of our society.
Hugh Grant is a Leveson witness, so it makes him a target. And at the same time the treatment doled out to him serves notice, not only on anyone else with opinions the Mail does not like but also on everyone involved in both of those inquiries, that they can be dealt with the same way.
In their high-minded moments, papers like the Mail present themselves as champions of free expression, yet this is how they deal with those who disagree with them. And they have the nerve to call other people hypocrites.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London and is a founder of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart
05 Aug 11 | Uncategorized
The Daily Mail’s new review of editorial controls and procedures is one of several now under way as the British press prepares to face the probing of Lord Leveson’s inquiry into phone hacking and related matters. Every newspaper will need to show the inquiry that it has responded to the public crisis of confidence in press standards.
There is little detail on what the Mail proposes, and there is no hint of a historical investigation into newsgathering methods at the Mail, though we can be sure that the Mail has already put a great deal of work into preparing for Leveson’s scrutiny. (It knows, for example, that it will have to explain its extensive use of private investigator Steve Whittamore, as revealed in the Information Commissioner’s report What Price Privacy Now? [pdf])
So what can a review of editorial controls and procedures do that might affect the Mail’s standards and impress the inquiry? Here are three suggestions.
First, it could examine standards of attribution. When somebody is quoted in the Daily Mail, what measures has the paper taken to ensure that the quotation is accurate and fair? Has the interview been recorded and the recording preserved? If not why not, and is there a good written note instead? If the quote is second-hand, has its authenticity been checked? If a quotation is used in a story without specific attribution, is there a good reason? Has it been satisfactorily explained to the reader why the speaker could not be identified in such a way that he or she might ultimately be traced? Does the relevant news editor know the speaker’s identity?
These simple if often tedious steps are marks of conscientious news reporting in the modern, accountable world. They make news credible and they make reporters virtuous. There is no reason why a well-resourced newspaper like the Mail could not establish and enforce clear rules along these lines, and such rules would undoubtedly impress the Leveson inquiry.
Second, the review could look at lines of command. When a reporter files a story, how much responsibility does the editor on the desk take for its content? Is there systematic fact-checking? If not, is the reporter questioned about the content to ensure it is accurate and fair? Where appropriate, is the reporter challenged about the methods used to gain the information, to ensure they conform with relevant codes of practice? And is it always clear to all parties which news editor is taking the appropriate responsibility?
Again, many journalists will find this tiresome and onerous, but they owe it to their readers and to the people they are writing about to make every reasonable effort to get things right, and to have measures and pressures in place to check. A culture of ‘don’t ask; don’t tell‘ is likely to flow from the absence of such checks, and inevitably leads to low standards.
Third, there is accountability. When something goes wrong, is there a satisfactory process to establish (for example, relying on the structures and rules above) how it went wrong and where the fault lay? Is there a clear understanding of who is responsible for what, right up through the system? And if there is, are there appropriate disciplinary procedures and are they used?
All very bureaucratic, no doubt, but again journalists — and particularly, it has to be said, journalists on the Daily Mail — need to remember that these are standards their paper demands of people in every other walk of life, from social workers, teachers and nurses to politicians, bankers and the people who run the railways and airlines.
Yes, journalism is usually done in a hurry and yes, it can be untidy and unpopular and it will sometimes get things wrong, but those are reasons to do everything possible to get things right. They are not reasons to opt out of a culture of responsibility that the most of the rest of society already accepts.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University and is a founder of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart.
